This is Steven Salzberg's blog on genomics, pseudoscience, medical breakthroughs, higher education, and other topics, including skepticism about unscientific medical practices. Here's where I can say what I really think about abuses and distortions of science, wherever I see them.

Pangolins, timid little anteaters that are covered with scales, are being hunted to extinction. Why? Because some humans think their scales can be used as medicine. Pangolin scales are made of keratin, the same stuff that makes fingernails and claws, and they have no more medicinal value than any other fingernails–which is to say, none at all.

Pangolins are gentle, toothless mammals that eat ants with their long, sticky tongues. They are covered with scales (sort of like a walking artichoke) which protect them from predators but not from humans, who simply pick them up to harvest them. Baby pangolins ride, adorably on their mothers' tails or backs, as shown in the picture here.

Just a few months ago, the CITES organization (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) banned trade in all eight species of pangolins. We can only hope that this blanket ban is not too late. Previously CITES had declared that Asian pangolins were endangered, but had allowed trade in African pangolins, but because the meat is indistinguishable, the limited ban did little to stop the widespread killing of Asian pangolins. Just before the CITES meeting, Annamiticus (@annamiticus) reported that in the first nine months of 2016, 18,670 tons of pangolin scales from 19 countries had been seized from smugglers, mostly in Hong Kong. And that's just the amount that was stopped; many more tons doubtless slipped through.